Ep15 | Helga Svendsen OAM — Stronger Together

So as the number of women on boards, of course, continues to grow across all sectors and it has jumped so much in these last 20 years and WAB enters the next decade, what's the next frontier?

So I think the whole diversity space is the next frontier.

I think...

I mean, even when I started thinking about boards and so on, I thought a lot more about gender equality in the boardroom and I think the conversation now has moved to diversity, equity and inclusion in the boardroom and I think that's a good thing.

We need to get way beyond it just being boards pick a woman, any woman, to ensuring that boardrooms have diverse people across the board and that we're not, quite frankly, just replacing all the old white men in the boardroom with old white women in the boardroom.

We need some of the men and the women to be people of colour, people with a disability, LGBTQIA+, First Nations people, and so on and so on.

So I think that is part of what will make boards stronger in the future.

I mean, all of the research shows diverse groups make better decisions and that's what boards are.

They are a group of people who decide and guide and support.

So I think diverse boards will be part of the future and what I'm hoping is is that also inclusive boards.

I feel a little like we've got to the point where there might be diversity in the boardroom.

I'm not sure it's always experienced as inclusive by all of those people and there's work to be done around that.

And I think the other thing that needs to be grappled with, and I don't know how this is going to play out, but is obviously technology and AI.

It blows my mind to what boards might look like in even two or three years' time, let alone five or ten years' time, and what technology might look like.

I have no idea, but I know they will look very different.